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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24066304">gave you so much (but it wasn't enough)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/tophsgf/pseuds/tophsgf'>tophsgf</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Rina - Freeform, Rina Week Prompt Generator (HSM: The Series), implied redky, red and gina will be best friends they will, this is not a happy fic, this is not a pro rini fic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 19:22:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,402</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24066304</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/tophsgf/pseuds/tophsgf</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Gina leaves, she says goodbye to Ricky the same way she’s done with everyone else. She doesn’t say anything. She simply packs her things and moves on. Or she tries to. She had a routine, a way to never connect with anyone more than superficially. A way to protect herself. Ricky Bowen threw a wrench in that. </p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Big Red/Ricky Bowen (HSM: The Series), Ricky Bowen &amp; Gina Porter, Ricky Bowen/Gina Porter, Ricky Bowen/Nini Salazar-Roberts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>gave you so much (but it wasn't enough)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>it's rina week LOL . this is a prompt for a songfic rina one shot by finelineholland on twitter!!!! i am also on twitter, so if you'd like to talk rina or redky or anti rini my user is SC0RSESE. i hope you enjoy this tiny lil fic. :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b> <em>/ saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts /</em> </b>
</p><p> </p><p>When she leaves, Gina says goodbye to Ricky when she leaves the same way she’s done with everyone else. She doesn’t say anything. She simply packs her things and moves on. Or she tries to. She had a routine, a way to never connect with anyone more than superficially. A way to protect herself. Ricky Bowen threw a wrench in that. </p><p> </p><p>Ricky texts her every day. And every day, she almost responded. It got to the point where she promised herself that the next message she gets from him, she’ll respond. But that next message never comes. </p><p> </p><p>Gina Porter has never been an optimist. She’s a realist through and through. But Ricky made her hope for something, made her attached. <em> She thought they, like, got each other. </em>Clearly, she was delusional, searching for a connection where there wasn’t one. He needed a distraction, she was there, end of story. </p><p> </p><p>For him. Because he can move on. He has people that let him take them for granted, he has a girl who is clearly in love with him, and he has a stability Gina will never have. Gina is stuck, which is ironic considering how often she’s uprooted. She has never been one for self-pity, never been one to curse the fickle temperament of fate, but because of him, she wants to be. It’s easier to swallow this being some sort of punishment for her unquenchable ambition that it being something Ricky did completely of his own volition. To help her up just to push her down. </p><p> </p><p>Gina knows Ricky doesn’t mean it maliciously. But somehow that makes it worse. Like she’s a thought that is easily banished. Just a temporary fixation until he had Nini back. Gina was so good at not caring, being at peace with the fact that she wouldn’t be missed by anyone from any of the schools she’s been to for the last seven years. No one has ever spared her a second thought after she left, that’s she’s always been sure of. And she was okay with that. Until Ricky Bowen had the audacity to text her. To make her think he cared, that he missed her, that she was important enough to him that he wouldn’t just forget her. </p><p> </p><p>That was idiotic of her to think, obviously. Gina won’t make the same mistake again. </p><p> </p><p>
  <b> <em>/ flashbacks waking me up /</em> </b>
</p><p> </p><p>When EJ pays for her flight to Salt Lake, when she braces herself for Ricky’s pitying expression and his stupid sad eyes, she feels the same stupid hope creep back, the feeling in her chest she got when Ricky sang to her. When he looked at her like she was the only one in the world. When he made her feel like, just maybe, she didn’t have to do everything alone. </p><p> </p><p>The way Ricky hugged her after Miss Jenn’s hearing felt like that too. He spun her around like they were the only two people in that room. Like Nini wasn’t watching. But she was. </p><p> </p><p>Maybe Ricky wanted her to. Maybe all Gina was to him was a means to an end. </p><p> </p><p>That probably isn't true. But it’s easy for her mind to go there. Especially now, as she makes her way to the theatre room, hands shaking. She is not a nervous person. She’s calm, composed, at least on the outside. She has to be. One show of weakness and the walls she’s built so carefully around herself will fall down. </p><p> </p><p>Ricky is her Trojan Horse, a cursed disguised as a gift. On the outside, he’s perfect for her, just as damaged, just as aware of how people perceive him. But on the inside, he’s hollow. Clinging to Nini, the one girl that feels safe, his constant. Gina is just the fool that let him see her. Not everything, just a little bit. But it was enough for him to weasel his way past her defences. To make her miss him. Even if the feeling isn't reciprocated. </p><p> </p><p>It clearly isn’t, judging on what he says when he sees her. </p><p> </p><p>“But I’m not the same as I was a week ago,” she hears him say as she gets ready to go back on stage, “or maybe I’m back to the way I always was.” That’s like a dagger. It hits her so hard, for a second, she can’t breathe. Because it confirms what she has already let herself think. She was Ricky Bowen’s temporary hindrance, an annoyance on his path back to Nini. </p><p> </p><p>A week ago, she would have told anyone who asked that Ricky Bowen was a good person, someone who, against all odds, made her feel like she belonged somewhere.</p><p> </p><p>Now, she feels stranded. EJ brought her back to a place where she isn’t even needed. A temporary replacement, that is all she was to Ricky, and to Nini, an obstacle to be defeated. </p><p> </p><p>It makes her more upset than angry, and she doesn’t like that. Gina’s comfortable with anger, she’s good at soothing its heat into power, channelling into energy that fuels her ambition. </p><p> </p><p>Her chest aches, but she goes on stage. Goes through the motions, lets the crowd’s odd energy keep her moving. She smiles at Nini, like they’re friends, like Nini didn’t laugh as Gina’s mother broke her heart for the millionth time.</p><p> </p><p>After the show, when she’s out of her costume, Big Red runs into her. Literally, he smacks into her. </p><p> </p><p>
  <b> <em>/ i get drunk but it’s not enough /</em> </b>
</p><p> </p><p>They make small talk as they wait for the audience to trickle out, nothing unexpected.</p><p> </p><p>But, somehow, Red surprises her. “I think they’re back together,” he says. </p><p>“Oh.” She tries to keep her expression neutral, unaffected. “That’s nice.”</p><p> </p><p>“It isn’t.” Red looks at her. Like, really looks at her. He stands on his tiptoes and looks to her for permission to grab her shoulders. Gina nods, mostly for lack of anything better to do in this bizarre situation. </p><p> </p><p>His grip is somehow comforting, and he’s close enough that she can count the individual freckles on the back of his hands. “I’m sorry, Gina.”</p><p> </p><p>The way Red says it, it feels sincere. Like he knows what she’s feeling. “They have this mentality where it’s like….” He pauses, thinking. Gina resists the urge to cry. “Like everyone is in the way of their epic love story.” </p><p> </p><p>The way he says it. That’s when it clicks. “You too?” It’s hardly above a whisper, but she knows Red hears her from the way his eyes go soft, like he’s thinking about something he’d rather not be thinking about. </p><p> </p><p>“Me too.” He confirms, letting go of her shoulders. “Not everyone is worth writing songs about.”</p><p> </p><p>“But you are.” Red laughs and the tension is dispelled, if only slightly. </p><p> </p><p>“Thanks, Gina. I-” he starts, but she sees his eyes go to something behind her, and his expression tells Gina exactly what he’s looking at. It’s Ricky with his arm around Nini, who is looking at them with a smile that doesn’t quite meet her eyes. It’s like almost everything about Nini. A little too enthusiastic, a little too forced. </p><p> </p><p>
  <b> <em>/ cause the morning comes and you’re not my baby /</em> </b>
</p><p> </p><p>Gina will wake up tomorrow and Ricky will be a blip on her radar, a shrinking figure in her rearview mirror. She refuses to let a boy she knew for mere months hurt her, simply because he likes convenience. Simply because he couldn’t fathom the idea of something real. She will go back to her life of distance and caution, where ambition is her only companion. </p><p> </p><p>All she is to Ricky is a deviance from the norm, a risk before he falls back into what’s safe. Maybe he doesn’t even realize that. </p><p> </p><p>She and Ricky do not have an epic love story, they’re just two people who were equally broken and tried to understand each other. And Gina thinks she does understand him, at least a little. </p><p> </p><p>In his own stupid way, he’s protecting himself. And she, of all people, can understand that. It doesn’t make the situation sting any less. It doesn't make it any better when he avoids eye contact with her every time they’re near each other. </p><p> </p><p>So, for the second time, Gina says goodbye to Ricky. She fortifies her defences, blocks his soft brown eyes from her mind. Tries to move on.</p><p> </p><p><em> Tries </em>is the keyword here. It doesn’t work. </p>
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